This paper has always promoted radical theatre from the days when, as the Daily Worker, it supported groups like Unity Theatre that were instrumental in introducing drama with an explicitly left-wing political intent to this country.

From the 1960s onwards, such initiatives evolved into what became known as the alternative theatre movement, when groups like the 7:84 theatre company - whose name derived from the fact that at that time 7 per cent of the population owned 84 per cent off the wealth - flourished.

For a quarter of a century, reflecting the heightened working-class and radical consciousness inspired by industrial struggles, the women's movement and the fight for racial equality and acceptance of sexual diversity, theatre challenged the old order of the drama establishment and offered alternatives that were artistically and politically radical.